


A Little Boy

by GamerWires627



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, wow these tags are so happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-08 14:05:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17982509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GamerWires627/pseuds/GamerWires627
Summary: A story about a little boy, his father, his mother, and his friends.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in a similar universe to All Bets Are Off, I guess.

It had started with a black eye.

_That had been her mistake. A visible bruise,_ he thought.

Sweet little Hugo didn’t deserve any of this. He didn’t deserve _abuse_ at the hands of that awful woman. He was glad he found out before it was too late.

He’d heard the story just after it happened. Hugo had shown up to daycare with visible bruising. A concerned woman had asked him about it. Hugo admitted to having been hit by his mother when the woman asked that. The rest was history.

Now he had a three-year-old in his arms.

The product of forced teenage ‘love’.

His relationship with the woman had left him broken. Afraid. Disgusted with his own body, always feeling _her_ hands on him, the phantom sensations of her hands on his back, chest, face,  anywhere.

He would never drink pink lemonade again after that night.

It was odd that a simple drink could carry so many horrid memories.

* * *

 

He wasn’t the only target. Sure, he had been her boyfriend and had taken most of the abuse, but she was the one who broke into school and wrote “ **PABLO FÉLÍN IS A WHORE**” on the wall. She had to be the one who set up Alma and Damien. She was definitely the one who tipped those boys off that Valerie was walking alone. She had to be the person who made sure the fiasco with Seneca, Charlotte, and Pablo happened. She had to be the one who led a serial killer to Bandit.

What other explanation could there be?

What other explanation for Pablo’s complete nervous breakdown in junior year because of relapses, the disappearance of his brother, being cheated on, watching Bandit die, the suffering of his schoolwork, being taken advantage of, violated, and assaulted by two different men, the come-back of the bullies, and just _Seneca and Japhet_ , eventually resulting in an attempt on his own life. Still faking his smile all the while.

What other explanation for Bandit’s death at the hands of that strange hooded woman?

What other explanation for Zacharie’s dad’s fate?

What other explanation for why he himself wound up in a mental hospital after trying to drink and drug himself to death and only succeeding in making himself throw up all over the school hallway?

* * *

 

Zacharie Martínez.

Pablo Félín.

Valerie Félín.

Susannah Sweet.

Lainey Alphe.

Elsen. Damien. Pentel. Alain. Emmett. Oliver. Charlotte. Ghost. Edna. Baddie. Jozlyn.

All of his friends.

Standing by him.

They all knew how hard it was to even look at Hugo, knowing what he was a reminder of.  

* * *

 

“Cute kid,” Zacharie had said.

Ghost and Edna remembered. They remembered when he had poured his heart out to them in the room of that mental hospital after not having said a word to anyone at all the entire time. They remembered when he told them about what his girlfriend had done to him.

Pablo and Alain weren’t at the friend group’s gathering at the apartment, the one where he was introducing his son to everyone.

The one on the day that Hugo Eloha entered the legal custody of his father, Michael Casey Battcher.

* * *

 

He found out why later.

The only time he’d ever seen Alain cry.

A relapse.

That’s what it was.

When he entered the hospital room, Pablo had started sobbing on the spot. He’d broken his promise. The whole scenario felt oddly similar to one occurring three years earlier. Entering a hospital room to a motionless boy, his face void of the usual smile, bandages all on his arms.

Zacharie and Valerie got some alone time with Pablo. Batter decided to go see Alain, who he’d left in charge of Hugo.

Alain had nodded, his eyes still red from the tears. “So this is him?”

“Yeah.”

They were both silent. Susannah- Sugar- and Jozlyn were the only other two who knew what was going on. It was up to Pablo to say what happened later.

“You really love him, don’t you…?” Batter had muttered.

“...Yeah. I do. I’m gonna propose soon. I think. Maybe.”

“Nothing wrong with that. It’s good that someone loves him. Just watch out for Jozlyn, Zach, and Val. You know how protective they are of him.”

“How could I forget the talk Sugar gave me when we started dating?”

“Remember what they did when Damien dared to break his heart?”

“Of course. Damien had it coming, though. Guy was kind of a dick. I don’t know _what_ Pabs saw in him.”

* * *

 

Hugo was confused.

Batter didn’t let him see Pablo, since he looked pretty pathetic at the moment.

Hugo could talk well for a three-year-old. He could realize he’d barely ever seen Batter before in his life. He didn’t seem to like the hospital.

* * *

 

 

Batter was happy that she was going away. Even when she inevitably got out, there was no way she’d successfully be able to get back custody of their son.

 

Hugo was a good kid.

 

She didn't deserve him

 


	2. Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three traumatized guys can totally raise a kid, right?

Hugo is four years old and he's going to preschool.

He's also living in an apartment with three college guys, one of which is his father, another which is his father's boyfriend, and the last... he just hangs around because Hugo's father's boyfriend is the last guy's best friend. 

Hugo often gets told that he looks like the perfect combination of his mother and his father. His even brown skin is the most likely result of his father's pale complexion mixing with his mother's dark skin. His eyes are black like his father's left eye and both of his mother's eyes. His hair, however, is black like his father's-- probably because his mother having her extremely light hair is very uncommon. 

His father is a tall, stoic man who was, admittedly, a bit socially awkward. He always avoided any conversation about Hugo's mother, and Hugo could vaguely remember his father calling her a 'devil woman' at some point or another. While he didn't know what the insult meant, Hugo had only bad memories of his mother.

His father's boyfriend is a short, brown man with glowing green eyes and eternally messy hair. He has scars on his face and hands and even a few on his chest and arms, and he never talks about them. He has a favorite sweater, a white one with a reddish-pink heart on the center. Hugo likes to call his father "Daddy" and his father's boyfriend "Papa (Z)" because it flusters his father (because he and his boyfriend are  _not married yet, we aren't getting married until we're out of college Hugo)_  and makes the boyfriend laugh (because _come on, Michael, we both know it's gonna happen_ ).

His father's boyfriend's best friend is a man who is between the heights of his father and his father's boyfriend. He wears hoodies that are too big and a giant smile all the time, unless he's upset or really really tired. He has hair that's so light blond it's almost white, pulled back in a short ponytail most of the time, and eyes that were pure gold. He speaks with a lot of words Hugo doesn't understand. Hugo calls him "Uncle Pabby" or just "Pabby" because he can never remember how his name ends. Pabby has a fiancé and that fiancé is a slightly unnerving, grumpy, yet caring man.

* * *

Hugo is four years old and there is a routine.

On weekdays when he goes to preschool, there is always someone to pick him up and drop him off because of how amazingly their schedules worked out. On weekends, at least one of them is home at a time. 

When Hugo and his father are home, his father is normally doing homework or watching TV-- but that doesn't mean it stops Hugo from keeping him company. When it's Hugo and Z, there's not a lot of contact made between them. Z doesn't really know how to handle little kids, and Hugo can often hear him on the phone talking to a friend about things that Hugo didn't understand (what did 'overdose' mean? what in the world was 'weed'? who knows, certainly not Hugo). Pabby is the most fun. He and Hugo aren't alone together as often, but Pabby makes an effort.

Hugo had a friend in preschool. Her name was Alice and she had blond hair and two mommies.

Hugo's dads and uncle wound up teaching him to read. They had also wound up teaching him a few words that Hugo wasn't sure why he wasn't supposed to say them.

* * *

Hugo is four years old and worried about Pabby.

Sometimes Pabby has really bad nightmares. His father says they're because of something bad that happened to Pabby in the past. His father gets similar nightmares. So does Z. Hugo never gets nightmares.

They all act differently after nightmares. Z flinches at everything and sometimes instinctively asks Pabby and Hugo's father not to hit him if they raise a hand. Hugo's father gets even more quiet than he is normally and won't meet Hugo's eyes because Hugo's eyes look just like his mother's. Pabby is the worst, though. He normally has to call someone-- Z, his fiancé, or that boy who looked just like him but with different eyes-- in order to calm down. If it's really bad, then he's probably curled into a ball and shaking.

Z can help Hugo's father and Pabby when they have nightmares.

* * *

 

_Zacharie is the best guy I know, he's so sympathetic._

* * *

Hugo is four years old and now he's at the park.

While being pleasantly surprised because Alice was there too, he also realized that his dads and his uncle had friends to meet there as well. They had a lot of friends, and Hugo didn't know any of their names. 

...

He overhears some conversation despite Alice's insistance that he come and play instead.

...

Hugo is four years old when he learns that his father had been in a coma before (though he didn't know what a coma was, he knew it had to have been something bad) after a joke that seemed to be in bad taste going off of the reactions.

One of the friends was a lanky girl with choppy blond hair and needle marks all over her arm. _She must be sick a lot_ , Hugo reasoned.  _They give you shots if you're sick._ She and Z are close. There's a girl there that seems to be close friends with Pabby's fiancé; she's called 'Jozzie' by most of them. Hugo's seen her slip a little bag of something into Pabby's fiancé's pocket, and he slipped some money to her.

But back to the needlemark girl. She acts oddly, with a soft, distant smile and vacant, dull blue eyes. Her bangs get in her face a lot. She probably needs a headband. She's very thin. Hugo has touched her hair before and it's a bit dry. She smells like cigarettes.

There's a boy there who smells weird.

When Hugo brings up any of his concerns, his father just tells him to go play with his friend.

Hugo is frustrated because the needlemark girl might need help and nobody seems to pay her any mind. So he tells Jozzie. She smiles sadly and tells him that  _yes, Sucre is sick. Very sick. But she'll live, and she isn't contagious. Don't worry, Hugo._

When Jozzie gets closer, Hugo can see a tiny bit of white powder on her nose. He thinks she messed up doing her makeup, but he doesn't bring it up after hearing about "Sucre".

"Sucre".

Z called Needlemark Girl "Sugar" while Jozzie called her "Sucre".

Who was right?

Hugo is four years old and he is confused.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Drop a comment if you liked it


End file.
